Cardinal George Pell, Australian church leader tasked with cleaning up Vatican finances but derailed by scandal – obituary

Cardinal George Pell, the former Archbishop of first Melbourne and later Sydney, who has died aged 81, was the most important Catholic of his generation in Australia, and made a significant impact on the global Church as well as being the man whom Pope Francis commissioned to try and sort out the longstanding mess in the Vatican finances.

Towards the end of his life, however, he was convicted of sexually abusing two choirboys in 1996, though he strongly denied the charges and immediately lodged an appeal, which was unsuccessful, before he was eventually cleared of the charges by the High Court of Australia.

In person Pell was tall and imposing and had been a noted sportsman in his youth. In manner he was affable, approachable and down to earth, with a liking for plain speech.

To his admirers he was a lion of orthodoxy, a staunch defender of the faith and a fearless culture warrior. To his enemies he was an object of fear and loathing, and one whom they constantly sought to bring down. He was once asked in private by a journalist whether he feared assassination, thanks to the way he was making enemies in the Vatican. After consideration, he replied: “No. They won’t try to kill me; they will just try character assassination.”

George Pell, known in his youth as Big George, was born in Ballarat, Victoria, on June 8 1941. His father, another George, had been a boxer, and was not religious, but his mother, Margaret, was a devout Catholic of Irish extraction. His only sibling, also Margaret, was later a violinist in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. George excelled at Australian Rules football, but decided he wished to be a priest rather than pursue a sporting career.

As he later explained to his biographer: “To put it crudely, I feared and suspected and eventually became convinced that God wanted me to do His work, and I was never able to successfully escape that conviction.”

The work of God started in a seminary in Australia, where it soon became apparent that George was academically gifted. In 1963 he was sent to complete his theological studies in Rome, prior to being ordained as a deacon. After ordination as a priest, he was sent to Campion Hall, Oxford, the Jesuit permanent private hall of the University, where he studied for a doctorate in history. During his time at Oxford, he served as Catholic chaplain to Eton College at weekends.

Returning to Australia in 1971, aged 30, the young Father Pell was sent to work as an assistant priest in a parish, as was usual with all young priests, first at Swan Hill, a small town in rural Victoria, and later in Ballarat East. In 1984 he was made parish priest of Bungaree, another rural backwater in Victoria. During this time, Pell did further studies in education and became the diocese of Ballarat’s chief strategist in the field. In 1985 he left parish ministry to be appointed seminary rector at Corpus Christi College, the seminary where he had started his own studies, and where young men training for the priesthood in Victoria were educated.

In the two years that Pell was in charge of the seminary, he reformed it root and branch. Having found it ill-disciplined, and with a teaching faculty much given to theological liberalism, he replaced most of the staff with men made in his own image, and who would be much more acceptable to the type of Church that was then emerging in the papacy of John Paul II.

This uncompromising approach to establishing doctrinal orthodoxy made him many enemies, but also cemented his reputation as an energetic and fearless leader. He was appointed auxiliary bishop in Melbourne in 1987; within a decade, he was made Archbishop of Melbourne. By this time, he was widely recognised as a hero by those who saw the reign of John Paul II as a time when the tide of liberalism in the Catholic Church would be reversed.

Pell became the model, in the eyes of many, of a John Paul II-style bishop, and was touted as a possible successor to the Polish Pope. At the same time, this nemesis of liberalism was widely despised by those whose theology and approach had never been questioned before his rise. Their despair was deepened when Pell was promoted to the more important see of Sydney in 2001, and received a cardinal’s hat two years later.

As Australia’s leading churchman, George Pell was forthright and outspoken, providing exactly the sort of leadership that conservative Catholics felt to be lacking in much of the rest of the English-speaking world. While others kept quiet on unpopular matters of doctrine, Pell was vocal, indeed combative.

He was strong in the defence of the Church’s moral teaching on marriage, and on homosexuality. He was firm in his proclamation that abortion was a grave sin. Hardly ever out of the papers, and frequently on television, he was happy to go head to head with the vehement atheist Richard Dawkins and to explain the Catholic faith to all comers.

If this was not enough to infuriate the Australian Left, he also made it clear to Catholic parliamentarians that by voting for legalisation of therapeutic cloning they risked excommunication. A Green MP tried to have him indicted for contempt of Parliament, but failed. Pell also made it clear on numerous occasions that he felt many of the claims made about global warming were extravagant.

For someone not frightened of disturbing Left-wing political orthodoxies, he nevertheless supported the Republican cause in the referendum on the monarchy.

Pell now had a global reputation in the Catholic Church cemented by his securing World Youth Day, an international gathering of young Catholics, for Sydney in 2008, which was attended by Pope Benedict XVI. He was also widely travelled, and a frequent speaker round the world.

With the accession of Pope Francis, who was elected with the expectation that he would reform the Roman Curia, the central organ of the Church’s government, Pell was appointed to the group of eight cardinals, known as the C8, to advise the Pope on this matter. Perhaps impressed by Pell’s no-nonsense manner, Francis appointed him to the new job of Prefect for the Economy in 2014.

The Vatican’s financial affairs had long been a source of scandal, and as Prefect of the new department, it was hoped that Pell would cleanse the Augean stable, and introduce a new culture of transparency, something that had been sadly lacking. In attempting this, he rapidly ran into covert opposition from various vested interests, all of whom were deeply committed to doing things the traditional, Italian, way, and who showed little liking for a cardinal from “il mondo anglo-sassone”.

Pell soon discovered reserves of cash that had not featured in the public accounts; but he was also subjected to a campaign to discredit him. His alleged excessive spending on the new department was criticised, and he was forced to deny as “completely false” the claim that he had spent half a million euros in his first six months, on, among other things, a cappa magna, the five-metre-long scarlet train worn by Cardinals. This accusation of personal vanity was comical to anyone who knew Pell personally.

Worse was to come. Pell’s attempt to bring the finances of the Vatican into line with international standards was gradually defeated thanks to the erosion of his authority and a series of turf wars with other Vatican departments. Gradually the new department for the Economy found its wings clipped and its staff sidelined as the vested interests fought back.

This culminated in the sacking of Libero Milone, the Vatican’s first ever auditor general, who was removed in June 2017, accused of spying on his superiors and threatened with arrest.

By this time George Pell had already left Rome for Australia to face charges of historic child abuse, which had been rumbling for decades, but which now came to a climax – thanks, it was believed by many, to his enemies in Australia collaborating with his enemies in the Vatican.

For years, Pell had had to defend his record as a bishop and archbishop in dealing with cases of child abuse. Despite repeated efforts by complainants, in front of various enquiries, including a Royal Commission on the matter, it was never proved that Pell had ever colluded or enabled priests to commit crimes against children and vulnerable adults.

His evidence to the various inquiries was robust and at the same time apologising for the Church’s record – and it often infuriated various victims. Peter Saunders, a child abuse survivor, appointed (until he left in 2016) to the Vatican commission for the protection of minors, joined in the criticism: “I personally think that his position is untenable, because he has now a catalogue of denials,” he told a television programme. “He has a catalogue of denigrating people, of acting with callousness, cold-heartedness – almost sociopathic, I would go as far as to say.”

Pell had already faced an accusation of child abuse which was investigated and dismissed in 2002. However, in the summer of 2017, public prosecutors in Victoria claimed that they had enough evidence to bring new charges against Pell. Obtaining leave from the Vatican, Pell voluntarily returned to Australia to defend himself.

The nature of the charges was not announced, though their substance was supposed to be the same as those aired in a book by the Australian journalist Louise Milligan, which was immediately withdrawn from sale once the case became sub judice.

There were initially two cases against Pell, the first concerned alleged abuse in a swimming pool, the second concerning allegations that he had abused choirboys in the sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. To the surprise of his friends, the first case was dismissed before it came to court, while the cathedral case went to trial.

It was the position of the defence that the alleged abuse could not have taken place, given the public nature of the cathedral sacristy, the narrow time-frame envisaged, and the ample evidence presented that Pell was never alone when celebrating Mass in the cathedral or afterwards. In addition, it was pointed out that a fully vested archbishop could not commit any sexual act owing to the nature of the vestments he wore.

Nevertheless, Pell was found guilty, though given leave to appeal; the appeal was not successful, though one of the judges dissented from the majority opinion. Finally, after Pell had spent more than a year in jail, his convictions were quashed by the High Court, the bench concluding that there was a “significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof”.

To many observers the entire process raised questions about Australian justice, the way in which Pell had been demonised by sections of the press, and the way that an accusation of abuse had been taken as proof of abuse, backed up by no forensic evidence or witnesses, or any evidence about previous patterns of behaviour.

Pell returned to Rome and retirement, now being past the age of 75. Unsubstantiated rumours swirled, one being that the Australian trial had been the fruit of a conspiracy between his enemies in the Vatican and his enemies at home, with talk of substantial bank transfers from the Vatican to the prosecution team, though no evidence of this ever emerged.

Despite his humiliation and imprisonment, which included his being prevented from celebrating Mass for more than 400 days, and being handcuffed when transferred to jail, Pell showed no bitterness to his accusers or to the Australian press, and published several volumes of prison journals in which he offered his sufferings up to God.

His retirement was spent quietly in Rome; he died from complications following hip surgery.

Cardinal George Pell, born June 8 1941, died January 10 2022